A monarch butterfly had shredded its wing upon a thorn and perched
helpless on a blade of grass in a meadow. In that thin cry that
insects sound which no person may hear, the butterfly beseeched help.
Two brothers of an insect ancestral to those they know were nearby and
in the voice heard distress and rendered aid.  The broken wing they
patched with their own saliva, weaving the delicate materials to fair form
with their mandibles.

Of sudden there turned the butterfly into the King of Faeries. Softly
he spoke to the brethren, "Of no coercement save your hearts, and to
no advantage to your own,
you have mended my wing.  Since your knowledge of my true
nature was unbeknowst to you, I too shall in kind impart upon you a
gift to aid you and your progeny's wings so long as they walk this
Earth.  Speak your wish, and so by my power, I shall impart upon your
wings what gifts the Feary have to give."

One brother spoke, "I wish my wings could carry me further, that with
one leap I could cross a field."

"So shall it be," said the Faery King, "And you?" He asked turning to
his sibling.

"Nothing," said he.

"Nothing?" queried the King, "But it is your wish I must fulfill."

"Nothing," said the bug, "...except if you might make it that with my
wings I could sing a music so beautiful that any who would wish to
hear may be enchanted with the sound."

"You realize," said the fey sovereign, "That in so doing you would
lose the power of flight forever?"

"So long as my songs may appear as manifestations of my heart," he
said, "I would wish it."

"So shall it be," said the Faery, becoming at once again a butterfly
drifting swiftly out of sight on his mended wings upon a wind that
graced the meadow.

The first of the brothers and all of his children henceforth became
what we now call grasshoppers.

The latter became the first cricket, and neither he nor any of his
children or any that came thereafter ever wished more than to pour his
heart into a song (or, of the females, to hear, and to listen, and to love).